Firm Ambitions

by Michael A. Kahn

  She nodded reluctantly. “I guess you’re right.”

  “It’s the same with your case. The problem is that the police think they have it solved. They want to leave it that way. Close the file, pass it on to the prosecutor, move to the next case. That’s the mentality. That’s why it’s practically impossible to get them to follow any new leads. They just don’t want to hear about it. We’re going to have to hand it to them neatly tied up and gift-wrapped before they do anything.”

  She took a sip of her coffee. “Can you?” she said. I could hear the discouragement in her voice.

  “I’m sure going to try.” I filled her in on the different leads our mother, Benny, and I were running down. She’d heard most of it before. “Something’s going to pan out,” I concluded, trying to inject some optimism into my voice. “I just know it.”

  I poured us both some more coffee.

  “Talking about burglars,” Ann said between sips, “last night was definitely not a great night for home security.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember Holly Embry? She used to be Holly Goodman.”

  “Sure.” Holly Embry was one of Ann’s friends from high school—no longer a close friend but someone Ann occasionally saw at parties or in the supermarket.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone broke into her house.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I asked.

  “No. Carol Marcus called this morning to tell me. She said it happened while Holly and Chuck were at the hockey game. Their kids were at her parents’ house.”

  “That’s good. What was stolen?”

  “Carol said the burglars took all of the silver, Holly’s fur coat, and several paintings. Fortunately, they’re all covered by insurance.”

  I frowned in concentration. “Holly Embry? I’ve seen that name somewhere.”

  “She was in Jerry Berger’s column a couple months ago.”

  “No, it was somewhere else.”

  ***

  Three hours later, I was seated in the office of L. Debevoise Fletcher, waiting for him to get off the damn phone. It was a vintage Ma Bell.

  For one creepy moment, I flashed back to my junior-associate days at Abbott & Windsor in Chicago, back to the one act that most partners at most large law firms inflict upon every associate in the firm: they answer every single telephone call that comes in while the associate is in their office. Every single telephone call. Dozens of times during my days at Abbott & Windsor—no, hundreds of times—I had been summoned to a partner’s office for “a five-minute meeting” only to emerge forty minutes later, having had those five minutes parsed out in sixty-second sound bites sandwiched between five leisurely incoming calls.

  At Abbott & Windsor, we called them Ma Bells. Associates at other firms had their own name. At Emerson & Palmer they were known as Your Mamas. The more astute student of hierarchy—such as any ambitious associate at a large law firm—grasps early on that Ma Bells are not restricted to partner-associate relations. Indeed, the pecking order within the intricate power structure of the partnership can be ascertained by a careful charting of partner-to-partner Ma Bells. Figure out which partners are Ma Bell inflictors and which are inflictees, ally yourself with the right inflictor, and someday you may no longer be an inflictee.

  Fletcher’s Ma Bell, combined with my lack of sleep and general edginess after last night, quickly had me incensed enough to storm out. But I made myself remember that Fletcher’s client and Fletcher’s client’s father were offering Eileen Landau a generous financial settlement. If part of the settlement price was a Ma Bell, so be it.

  To calm my jangled nerves, I looked around his office. On the wall above his head was a large wood display plaque—the kind used for displaying the mounted head of an African lion or wildebeest. Fletcher’s was empty. Beneath the place for the missing head was a brass plaque that read “MAX FEIGELBAUM (Homo selachii).” I had to smile. Max Feigelbaum, a/k/a Max the Knife, had represented Fletcher’s wife in their bitter divorce trial. According to an article on divorce lawyers that had appeared in the National Law Journal, Max the Knife’s victory in the acrimonious case of In re the Marriage of L. Debevoise and Patricia E. Fletcher had resulted in a property and alimony award that “resembled a decree by Vlad the Impaler.” When sober, Fletcher refers to his nemesis as the “Fiendish Feigelbaum.” After several drinks, according to sources at Abbott & Windsor, the Fiendish Feigelbaum becomes Max the Kike.

  I stood up and walked over to the picture window. Fletcher’s office had a beautiful view of the Old Courthouse and its shimmering reflection in the Equitable Building. On the wall by the window was a photograph of Fletcher in his Green Beret uniform shaking hands with John Wayne. Next to that photograph was the framed Silver Star awarded to him in Vietnam. One of the unwritten survival rules for any associate assigned to a case with Fletcher was to feign keen interest when, at the end of the day, Fletcher leaned back in his chair to tell one of his repertoire of four interminable Green Beret stories.

  At last, Fletcher brought the telephone conversation to an end. “Sorry about that, Rachel,” he said unapologetically. “Now where were we?”

  I turned to face him just in time to catch his eyes shifting up from my thighs to my face. I held his stare for a moment. “Trying to tie down the loose ends, I believe. We were on point six.”

  He looked down at the list of settlement demands I had given him. Eileen was willing to accept her father-in-law’s divorce settlement proposal, but on my advice had added eight additional points—relatively minor, but proper nevertheless. For example, point five required Tommy to pay the legal and accounting fees Eileen incurred in the divorce. I hoped to prevail on at least four of the eight points. Fletcher and I haggled over the remaining items for another thirty minutes and ended with an agreement in principle.

  “You understand, Rachel, that this is all subject to the agreement of my client and his father.”

  “Then get it, Deb.”

  “I certainly intend to recommend it.”

  “Why not call them now? I’ll go down the hall and call Eileen from another phone while you talk to Tommy and his father.”

  “You’re certainly in a hurry to get this done.”

  “So is your client’s father, Deb. After I talk to Eileen I’ll wait for you in the firm’s library.”

  Eileen was delighted when I told her that Fletcher had agreed to six of the eight points, including the four that we wanted and two of the four we were prepared to give away. Fletcher’s door was still closed when I got off the phone, so I walked down the hall to wait for him in the firm’s law library. I was on the couch by the periodical stand leafing through the current issue of the National Law Journal when Fletcher poked his head in.

  “Well, Counselor,” he said with a broad grin, “it looks like we have a deal.”

  “The same deal you and I agreed to?” I asked pointedly, having observed firsthand that Deb Fletcher was the type of attorney who would keep trying to sneak an extra term into the deal up until the time the final papers were signed.

  He chuckled. “The very same, Rachel.”

  “Then I’ll draw up the papers and fax you a draft by the end of the week.”

  “Very good.” He grinned as he shook his head. “For a while there I thought you and I were going to be climbing into the ring on this one.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be long before we get that chance in another case.”

  “Maybe so, but this one would have been a doozy. Especially with those pictures of your client. I’ll say one thing about her—”

  “Don’t,” I interrupted.

  “My, my, aren’t we touchy these days?”

  I exhaled slowly. “Deb, unless you want to reopen negotiations, drop it. I won’t say anything about your client, you won’t say anything about mine. You got it?”

&
nbsp; He shrugged and gave a chuckle. “Fair enough, Rachel. I must say, however, that you’re getting just a tad hypersensitive as you get older.”

  I forced a smile. “That’s supposed to be clever?”

  “Ah, so now we’re going to have a battle of the wits.”

  “I don’t think so, Deb. It’s against my code of honor to fight an unarmed man.”

  He gave me a tight smile—the kind that seemed to say that if I were a man he’d punch my lights out. I returned the sentiment with an equally tight smile that tried to suggest that if I had a Sherman tank at my disposal I would drive it through the side of his house and leave treadmarks across his back. We walked side by side to the front of the offices, exuding that special bonhomie of fellow members of a learned profession.

  “I almost forgot,” Fletcher said as I waited for the elevator. “Harris Landau told me you had asked for information about some company his firm had done some work for.”

  “Right. Capital Investments of Missouri.”

  “Whatever,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “He told me to tell you that his firm did some minor work for the company—routine corporate filings and such. However, he found no authority in the files to reveal any information about the company that isn’t already in the public record.”

  “Which means?”

  There was a ding as the elevator arrived.

  He gave me a smug look. “Which means you aren’t going to get the information you asked for.”

  I stepped onto the elevator and turned to face Fletcher with an impassive expression. “If that’s his position, fine. I have to be in criminal courts out in the county in the morning for some pretrial matters on my sister’s case. Tell Harris that I’m going to ask the judge to order his firm to disclose that information.”

  Fletcher gave me a puzzled look. “On what possible ground?”

  None came to mind immediately. No matter. I’d have one ready by the time I presented the motion in the morning. “He can find out in court tomorrow,” I said as the elevator door slid closed.

  ***

  On the way back to my office I swung by Kimmi Buckner’s house again. She wasn’t home, or at least she wasn’t answering her doorbell. My business card was still wedged in the front door.

  When I got back to my office, I checked my mail and my telephone messages. There were plenty of both, but none from Kimmi Buckner and none from Christine Maxwell.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  That peculiar reality known as Anglo-American law contains, indeed requires, certain imaginary creatures known as “legal fictions.” For example, the law of torts is built upon the behavior of a phantom known as the Reasonable Man. The Reasonable Man is always careful, always vigilant, always moderate, always sensible, always clearheaded, always prudent. Twenty-four hours a day. The Reasonable Man always stops at railroad crossings, always puts on protective eyewear, always disconnects the cord from the electrical outlet before repairing, and always makes sure he has adequate ventilation. Compared to the Reasonable Man, Ward Cleaver is Evel Knievel.

  The corporation is another legal fiction. Under the law, a corporation is a person. Just like you. If you prick it it does bleed, if you tickle it it does laugh, if you poison it it does die, and if you seek confidential information from its attorneys it does invoke the attorney-client privilege, which is exactly what it did the following morning when I appeared in court to present my motion to compel Landau, Mitchell & McCray to disclose the identities of the principals of Capital Investments of Missouri, Inc.

  Harris Landau was in court, along with his attorney, L. Debevoise Fletcher. Never one to walk a courtroom tightrope without a net, Fletcher had brought along an intense young associate who had no doubt spent the last hour trying to drive into Fletcher’s tiny brain the applicable principles of law. Fortunately for Fletcher and unfortunately for me, the presiding judge was Roman Samuels, a gray-haired GOP stalwart who saw nothing fictional in the legal fiction. Indeed, from the stern look on his face, Judge Samuels seemed to be under the impression that this particular corporation was somehow a blood relative. I got through half of my argument before Judge Samuels ran out of patience.

  “Come, come, Counsel,” he interrupted, clearly irked. “The purpose of life insurance, as its very name signifies, is to insure a life, i.e., to provide to the beneficiary a fixed sum of money in the event that the named insured should die.” He looked at my opponent. “Right?”

  Deb Fletcher beamed. “Precisely, Your Honor.”

  Judge Samuels glared down at me. “Why, I daresay that half the corporations in this city own key-man life insurance policies on their CEOs.” He looked over at Harris Landau, who was standing next to Fletcher. “Is that a fair statement, Harris?”

  Landau pretended to contemplate that verbal softball as it floated in over the middle of the plate. “At least half, Your Honor.” You could almost hear the crack of the bat.

  Judge Samuels looked down at me. “That’s my point, young lady. The mere fact that this company chose to acquire such insurance hardly makes it a murder suspect, and certainly does not constitute a waiver of its attorney-client privilege. Your motion will be denied.”

  Deb Fletcher and Harris Landau were waiting for me in the hall outside the courtroom. Fletcher was smirking in triumph. “You shouldn’t bite the hand that’s going to feed one of your clients,” he said to me.

  I brushed by him without a word and headed toward the lobby. The elevator doors slid open just as I reached them. Fletcher was following, of course, and stepped in with me. He held the door for Landau.

  “Rachel,” Landau said gently as the elevator started its descent, “please understand that there’s no personal animus behind my firm’s position. Unless we are specifically authorized to do so, we never disclose facts about our clients or their activities. Our position is based entirely on principle.”

  I said, “In my experience, Harris, I have yet to come across a position asserted by an attorney in a courtroom that is based entirely on principle.”

  ***

  Three hours later, I handed a filing fee and my Verified Petition to Perpetuate Testimony to the cashier in the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. As the old cliche goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I hoped I’d found one of them. Although there were several procedural hurdles I would have to clear, if I cleared them all I would have a federal court order requiring the law firm of Landau, Mitchell & McCray to disclose the identities of the principals of Capital Investments of Missouri, Inc.

  The clerk stamped the petition and handed it to the assignment clerk, who conducted the random draw to determine which judge would be assigned to the matter. As she reached for the drawing cards, two other clerks stepped over to serve as witnesses—a procedure to ensure that the draw is truly random. She lifted the top card toward her and then glanced at one of her fellow clerks. He shook his head and looked up at me with a barely disguised look of pity. The clerk turned the card toward me. It had one word on it: MADIGAN.

  “That can’t be,” I said. “He’s on senior status.”

  She shrugged. “He still handles miscellaneous matters. I’m sorry, Miss Gold.”

  Stunned, I walked outside the clerk’s office and stared at the directory on the wall:

  JUDGE KEVIN W. MADIGAN. . . . . Room 867

  I walked over to the elevator and pushed the UP button.

  Kevin Wallace “Mad Dog” Madigan embodied the dark side of Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that federal judges are appointed for life. Lifetime judicial appointments are nice in theory. The problem is, things happen during a long life. Such as senility, which had held Judge Madigan’s dance card for the last several years.

  But even before senility, Judge Madigan’s courtroom had long been known as the Wheel of Justice—a place where the law was d
ispensed (or dispensed with) in a manner that suggested reliance not on legal precedents but on the entrails of pigeons. A strict constructionist one day, a radical activist the next, Mr. Rogers one morning, Freddy Krueger that afternoon, Judge Madigan might appear on the bench in any one of more than a dozen ill-fitting judicial temperaments selected from the vast walk-in closet of his psyche. As Benny had once quipped, “When E.T. calls home, Mad Dog answers.”

  Judge Madigan’s ancient secretary took my name, disappeared into chambers, and returned a few minutes later. She sat down at her desk without saying a word or even acknowledging my presence. With a shrug, I took a seat and pulled out my copy of Emma and comfortably settled in.

  Forty minutes later, the judge’s secretary announced that he would see me now. Inside his enormous chambers and seated behind a huge desk, Judge Madigan looked even more diminutive than he did in his courtroom. Above him hung a large framed photograph of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. His Honor was holding a yellow highlighter marker in one hand and intently reading a Spiderman comic book that was open on his desk. He looked up briefly, his eyes swimming behind thick eyeglasses, and then returned to his comic, pausing to highlight a balloon of dialogue. His bald head was sprinkled with age spots.

  “Good afternoon, Your Honor, Rachel Gold, for the petitioner.”

  No response. He leaned forward to highlight something in the comic book. His bony hand shook slightly.

  I stood up and slid my court papers toward him across the top of his desk. The movement caught his eye. He pushed his comic book to the side and leafed through the court papers.

  He looked up and squinted at me. “Who are you?” he snapped.

  “Rachel Gold, Your Honor. Counsel for—”

  He held up his left hand, shaking his head. “Hold your horses, girlie.” He had a high-pitched, nasal twang. “I have to adjust the volume on this damn thing.” His right hand fiddled with the knob on his hearing aid. “Say something,” he snapped. “Recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”